This review contains some spoilers, but I am sure that you're better off reading my review (or any review, really) than even trying to watch this.
TL;DR: Style over substance... Wait, really? The style was nothing special as well.
I am honestly puzzled at how this anime has a rating of 8.1 on MAL and multiple awards for being a "Mystery or Psychological Anime of the Year." Seriously? It had almost zero Mystery, and I'm inclined to rate the level of inclusion of the "Psychological" element in negative integers.
The premise, and maybe even part of the first episode, was interesting enough to make me watch the second
...
episode. From there on, I continued with it only to marvel at its shortcomings.
The plot somehow manages to incite feelings of both "this might've been better if it was longer" and "this should've been shorter" (at just 11 episodes!). It appears painfully, unreasonably dragged out, but also confusingly rushed, though mostly not really in a way of "I want more of this".
First, the anime shows us two teenage boys stealing something from some important facility, enrolling in a school (that just incidentally introduces the other main character), and planting explosives in a governmental building (where the other main character just incidentally happens to be).
After that, they force the police to solve riddles on the topic of the more obscure parts of Greek mythology to stop the bombs in other buildings from exploding. To communicate with the police, they post videos (with their faces barely hidden under masks, with their voices unchanged, in clothing they later wear outside) which the main detective just incidentally finds, with help of his sidekick. The riddles aren't fun and are impossible to solve without in-depth knowledge of an unrelated topic - a cheap trick to make the main characters look intelligent.
Their vandalism is also not exactly "terrorism", so disregard the title: the characters don't exactly make any demands, nor do they reveal their motives to the public; it is just destruction for the sake of destruction, although some screen-time is paid, for some reason, to reassure the viewers that the main characters care about not hurting any civilians.
Later, the show introduces another party that wants the main characters dead, for their own mysterious reasons. New horribly-written characters appear.
In the end, some parts of the characters' backstory and some of their motives get briefly revealed, with a weak attempt to tackle themes of post-war nationalism and transhumanism. The "grand" explanation doesn't account for around half of the main characters' lives. Furthermore, most of the revelation is possible to guess after following the opening and the flashbacks, which are sporadically pushed into the viewers' faces.
Now, the characters. Nine and Twelve are the stereotypical nerdy, reclusive h4x0r boy and the cheerful sidekick. Both are supposed to be very unusual and unique, but only in the first episode is Twelve shown to be slightly not well-adjusted to life in a normal society. In the subsequent episodes, we learn absolutely nothing about them, nor do they develop - quite the opposite, actually: characters' complexity and development are treated almost like an existential threat to the anime.
Another character that could be called "main" (and whom I despised for ten episodes), Lisa, Nine's and Twelve's classmate, is a good-for-nothing, depressed, bullied (for unknown reasons) high school girl that runs away from her possessive mom. She constantly jeopardizes every plan Nine and Twelve attempt to execute and serves no purpose, aside from being a screen-time hog nobody wanted. As if to highlight how mind-numbingly stupid she is, during one of her numerous emotional breakdowns, she asks Twelve to immediately leave her and let her die while they are trapped on a Ferris wheel, high in the air.
The main detective, Shibazaki, is not as lifeless as the above three, but he's not that well-written either and doesn't exactly leave a lasting impression.
The antagonist, Five, is an exaggerated, cringeworthy, cartoonish villain that does no good for the already failing show, and raises a serious question about if this anime is just making fun of itself at this point.
The visuals and the soundtrack were ok. Not something I especially liked, there were good moments here and there, but overall it was hard to enjoy these when the events are getting increasingly more ridiculous by the minute. The overall atmosphere or some supposed "tension" did nothing for me, either, mostly because I kept laughing at the plotholes, the supposedly "smart" characters acting braindead, and the plot's attempts at portraying drama and struggles.
Overall, the more I think about it, the worse impression I get of this anime. Not worth watching under any circumstances.
Rating: 2/10.
Apr 25, 2022
Zankyou no Terror
(Anime)
add
This review contains some spoilers, but I am sure that you're better off reading my review (or any review, really) than even trying to watch this.
TL;DR: Style over substance... Wait, really? The style was nothing special as well. I am honestly puzzled at how this anime has a rating of 8.1 on MAL and multiple awards for being a "Mystery or Psychological Anime of the Year." Seriously? It had almost zero Mystery, and I'm inclined to rate the level of inclusion of the "Psychological" element in negative integers. The premise, and maybe even part of the first episode, was interesting enough to make me watch the second ... |
